BROADCASTER Stuart Hall turns 80 on Christmas Day and after half a century in the business can still brighten any football report or TV appearance with his off the wall quips.

The presenter with the infectious and irrepressible laugh, from Prestbury Road, Wilmslow, who has been livening up even the most hopeless match report for 50 years, continues to chuckle at the beautiful game.

Indeed his ability to laugh at life, never better shown than as a presenter on slapstick gameshow It’s A Knockout, has been his trademark and surely the reason for his longevity.

The grandfather of four, who is married to Hazel and has two children, Danny and Francesca, said: "Life is a joke, but you don’t get the punch line until you’re being lowered six feet under.

"But I always get it, I always have a laugh.

"The whole of life is ridiculous, it matters but nothing matters terribly.

"You have to be insane to listen to me, I’m a bit insane myself, only the insane know what sanity is.

"My wife just goes along with my humour, she knows I’m crackers."

Stuart’s 50 year career was celebrated at a special tribute this month on Radio 5 Live, the BBC channel on which he still gives match reports, aired from the City of Manchester stadium.

Sports stars, Coronation Street’s William Roach and Manchester City legends Mike Summerbee and Francis Lee turned up to pay tribute.

Stuart said: "The tribute was wonderful, I am very flattered.

"But you have to take it in your stride."

With fans around the world and a legend among football lovers who lap up his poetic and flowery commentary, it might be difficult for Stuart to keep totally grounded, but he says he is really just a ‘husband and grandad, with his 'feet firmly on the ground’.

So strong is his support that when he threatened to give up broadcasting five years ago, BBC listeners got a petition together begging him to stay.

Born in Ashton-under-Lyne, he had a go at racing cars and playing football before starting his BBC career but he never won a race and had an offer from Crystal Palace in the early 50s of £20 a week and £10 in the summer which, he says, ‘wouldn't have kept me in tarts and fags’.

He found he was much better let loose on a microphone as a commentator and took his whimsical way with words and rich voice into broadcasting.

He did his first match report in 1959, became a regular on the radio and worked as a presenter for North West Tonight for many years .

He has reported on football matches all over the country, but mostly in the North West, preferring not to have to travel home on Saturday nights, which are for ‘drinking with pals’.

This activity often happens in Alderley Edge, which he calls ‘fantastic, a little oasis’, and in which he had an impromptu sing song only last week with revellers outside the London Road Restaurant.

He has always lived in the North West, where 'all the best comics come from', he said.

Stuart presented It’ a Knockout, for which he now owns the rights, for 16 years and became famous in living rooms across the country.

The show saw members of the public dressed in cumbersome costumes playing ridiculous games often involving buckets of water and Stuart was the hysterical host.

He now presents a Japanese spinoff called Ninja Warrior on Challenge TV.

Stuart said: "Knockout was an amazing show, people love it because it’s a highly competitive Olympic games for ordinary people. But I can’t do it here any more, I’m fighting health and safety.

"I’ve done it all over the world and Britain is the only place I can’t, I feel aggrieved!

"Even the tug of war is a 10/10 health and safety risk."

When Knockout stopped, Stuart didn’t, and still delights football fans by adding cheeky metaphors or literary references to make a rainy Burnley match day seem like the most exciting sporting moment.

He said: "I give them a bit of poetry or Shakespeare, liven it up a bit. You can always send up football."

Stuart says he is as enthusiastic about what he does as he has always been and his energetic outlook makes him the perfect choice to give advice to budding broadcasters.

He said: "You create your own style, don’t be shoehorned in to be like the people on either side, if you’re good enough, people will listen.

"Do your own thing, I have always done mine. I was called the Lord of Misrule early in my career and it has stuck with me, I have really never grown up."